


it's safe to surmise there'll be storms at times

by miabicicletta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: But sometimes it makes her sad, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Molly loves her job, Sherlock is Learning About Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I love my job," she said quietly. She straightened the folders into a pile before tucking them together under her arm.  “Except for the days I hate it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's safe to surmise there'll be storms at times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amalia Kensington (amaliak01)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaliak01/gifts).



> Since I seem to only be making Molly sad in stories lately, here's a tiny bit of h/c fluff. Like, one of these days I'll write something that is nothing but high-fructose corn syrup nonsense. This is as close as you'll get today, though. 
> 
> Title comes from the pretty/sappy Ben Gibbard ballad [Where Our Destination Lies](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xiiIAi5JGY).

Boredom drove him to the lab one afternoon. Cultures to check; samples to run. Worth enduring the teeming masses in crosstown traffic. Better than the incessant clucking of Mrs. Hudson, anyway. Plus the Jeremy Kyle marathon had ended. Needs must.

He sat at his microscope and began as usual. “Molly, I need the–”

"Not today," she brushed past him out of the lab. The door swung open then closed again in Molly Hooper’s wake, leaving him alone.

Sherlock Holmes stared after her for a moment, blinking in confusion, wondering if he had heard her correctly. Molly never refused him. Not when he asked for help; not when he asked for coffee. He rose to his feet and pushed through the the lab doors, replaying the scene back, looking for some reason behind her behavior. She had not been angry or curt. She had not seemed ill or even particularly frazzled.

She was not in her office; the door was closed, the light off. Morgue then.

He peered through the glass. Molly sat on a stool, scribbling on paperwork laid out across a large steel examination table. Her mouth was drawn, thin and dry. The edges of her eyes were puffier than usual. Her shoulders slumped, though not out of pain or discomfort. Her emotional turmoil made itself clear in a half-dozen other, smaller ways though none overtly betrayed the source.

Sherlock moved through the door. It closed behind him with a soft _click_. Molly did not stir. "You look sad," he said. He hesitated a moment before naming the emotion, uncertain he had read it correctly.

"I am,” Molly answered. She looked up at him once, her face impassive, then returned to the files before her.

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” She checked a form and slid it along with a sheaf of papers into a folder.

Did it? No, not to him; not directly, at any rate. And yet, he found it did. Initially he assumed it was the lack of a clear explanation for her behavior, but as he examined his feelings further, he saw that was not the issue. It was not that he was unable to discern the reasons for why—if given proper attention, the variable causes would make themselves known eventually.

No, it was _the notion_ that Molly Hooper was sad that bothered him. Bright, sunny, cheerful Molly, who was was an endless source of warmth and good humor, even in a place of death, suffering and, often, criminal misdoings. It was difficult for him to reconcile her usual demeanor with the one she presented. He felt...possessive of her optimism. Entitled? No; he was often undeserving of her sweetness. And something had robbed her of it. Some fundamental bit of Molly's _Molly-ness_ had been taken from her. From Molly, who mattered. From Molly, who wasn’t okay.

“Yes,” he told her.

She looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes were slightly red, her expression searching. She set her pen down, rising to her feet. With terrible dispassion, she reached up to open the first row of cold storage lockers. Revealing a pair of tiny feet.

"2A: Cora Merryfield, age 9.” She closed the drawer, opened the next in the row. “2B: Catlin Merryfield, age 7; 2C: Derrick Merryfield, age 4," she said, voice flat and unaffected. "All found dead this morning in a squalid flat in council housing. Mother suffocated them. Told the detective on scene that the youngest wouldn't stop crying.” She stared absently, eyes out of focus. “Couldn’t find any body bags small enough for them. Still waiting on them from the Royal London.”

In the Venn diagram of deaths investigated by Sherlock Holmes and deaths analyzed by Molly Hooper, the overlap was, in reality, quite small. While he knew the quality of her work and the advantages it afforded him, in truth he observed it very little, and only as often as he required.

"Most deaths aren't puzzles," Molly said. Her eyes did not move from Derrick Merryfield’s tiny feet and her voice was very small, as if she did not have the energy to raise it. "Most of the people who come in here, there isn't a crime to solve. No real mystery to it. Most people just die, for the most obvious, awful reasons."

She closed the door. "In my experience death is either sad and expected, or sad and unexpected."

Molly turned away, back to her piles of paperwork detailing the last moments of the Merryfield siblings. "I love my job," she said quietly. She straightened the folders into a pile before tucking them together under her arm. “Except for the days I hate it.”

She turned and gave him a smile. Tight; perfunctory; did not reach her eyes. "Sorry. Did you need something?"

"No," he answered, studying her. “Molly, would you like–”

Molly brushed him off, taking her files. "Sorry, but–I can’t. Need a night off from murder and mayhem. Goodnight, Sherlock."

She left, the morgue doors swinging behind her, abandoning Sherlock Holmes to his thoughts.

* * *

He was past Clerkenwell Road before he consciously realized where he was going and why.

 _Molly Hooper_ , he summoned, en route to her Islington flat. _Preferences, food; neighborhood takeaway; Thai. Likes: lemongrass, basil, saffron; yellow curry with brown rice and vegetables. Prefers Lotus on Upper to Lemon Tree on City Road or Siam Palace on White Lion Terrace._

Sherlock hesitated, uncertain when he acquired said information. It just sort of...appeared.

An hour later (after he’d waded through the great fountain of information acquired about Molly Hooper) he let himself into her flat. From the loo, he heard the sound of running water. Shower then. Molly liked showers. There was a full bath, but she rarely used it. She liked the feeling of water falling. Found it soothing. Psychologically restorative; rinsing her day away. He caught himself again. Thinking about Molly in the shower was strange. Stranger to realize it was evidently not the first time he had done so. Revealing.

The door to the washroom opened.

"Sad and unexpected, I take it,” he said, setting out cartons on her coffee table.

Molly padded out in gray shorts and a long-sleeved dark blue t-shirt bearing the name of a half marathon that had taken place some years before. “Kids always are,” she said with a sigh. She pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge, pouring a single glass. “Did you bring me dinner?”

“Yes. Although, in the interest of the truth, I was also hungry.”

“As long as you’re sharing.”

She eased to the floor beside where he had perched on the couch, leaning back against it and rolling her neck. He traded her a pair of chopsticks for her glass of wine, and neither of them seemed to find it strange that he sipped from it as if it were his own.

"Your father was expected."

"Yeah. He was sick for a long time." Molly looked up at him briefly. "I wish you wouldn't smoke." She poked at the curried chickpeas on her plate with disinterest. He imagined she saw outsized lymph nodes and stomach bile. He regretted the choice.

"And the unexpected?"

The corner of her mouth twitched up. “Well, there was the time this consulting detective I knew jumped off a building,” she said, lifting one eyebrow as she accepted her glass back and took a sip. 

He smirked, and she smiled fully in response before returning to poke at her chickpeas. "My mum. I was little. Didn't really understand. Never really knew her. But I remember the doctor who sat with me and tried to explain why she wasn’t coming home. He was honest, no pretty lies. But he was kind about it. I thought about that a lot when I was deciding on my specialization. I’d been planning on epidemiology but...it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be able to give some comfort to people.”

She shook her head. “There wasn’t any to give today. And certainly none to be had.”

Sherlock reached down. Hands under her arms, he lifted her up onto the cushion beside him, putting his arm around her shoulders and drawing her to his side. She tensed at the contact, slightly alarmed. “What are you doing?”

“Is this not what people do when they try to be comforting?” he answered, flicking on her television to a rerun of _Doctor Who_. He felt her lingering gaze on him before she turned to the screen away. "You hate this program."

"Yes," he shrugged. Not entirely accurate; he rather enjoyed poking holes in the narrative. 

“Then why–” she started.

“You like it,” he said.

The whirly-whooing theme music cued up. Molly again regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Why are you being so nice tonight?” she asked, not bothering to hide the suspicion in her voice.

“Because I don’t like to see you sad, Molly Hooper.” He stole her glass from her hand and took a drink before setting it on the table. “I’ve enough experience. Have been the source of it more than once," he acknowledged. "I've found I strongly prefer my pathologists obnoxiously cheerful.”

Molly's lips betrayed the barest glimmer of her suppressed smile. She arched an eyebrow. “Not sure most come that way.”

He tipped his head toward hers, ever so slightly. “Works in my favor then, as I’m fond of a fairly unusual one.”

The blue light of the television swam in her wide and colorless eyes. “Well. Thank you.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Her breath tickled his skin as her lips gently touched below his mouth; soft, small, warm. Her mouth was close, alluring, impossible to turn from. He acted without making the conscious decision to act. Without thinking, Sherlock reached up and caught her face in hand. Running his thumb across the curve of her cheekbone, he felt the line of her jaw beneath his palm. He pulled her in, and kissed her. She broke away after a moment with a sharp intake of breath. “If you’re trying–"

“No.” He shook his head. 

“No?”

“ _Trying_. Manipulating. Whatever you think, I am not. Also didn’t really plan that. Just sort of...happened,” he finished.

She stared at him, which made him feel uncomfortable. He fidgeted under her open scrutiny, avoiding her eye. The damp curtain of her hair spilled over one shoulder, trailing along her pale skin. Her face was without guile, but uncertain. He supposed he deserved it. The somberness of her mood earlier in the evening struck him. _Taking advantage, mate_ , his inner John shouted. His heart began to race. He'd read it wrong. He always read Molly wrong. Bit not good. Bit very, very not good.

Sherlock looked around, quickly, beginning to plot his hasty exit. He did not get far. Instead he found his breath stolen as Molly kissed him once more. Her tiny nose brushed his, small and soft. _Oh._

Maybe _not_ not good.

Moments must have passed. He didn't keep track. Didn't bother taking note of anything other than Molly's soft, small mouth on his until a decidedly non-terrifying robot very loudly demanded the extermination of the human race. 

He sighed, turning his head, incapable of ignoring the genocidal trash-cans. “This program really is rubbish.”  

Molly blinked very quickly for a moment. Her mouth turned up, sliding into that slow, sneaky smile he found rather delightful. “Says the devotee of Jeremy Kyle.”

“Devotee,” he scoffed, sliding further down the couch. 

“Shh,” Molly said, “I like this bit.”

“There isn’t a gram of truth to this.”

“No.”

He scowled, gesturing at the telly as he ranted. “How is it that _they_ are supposed to represent the height of mechanical evolution? They've got egg-beater-y bits! Also there is no sound in a vacuum—or oxygen, for that matter—and gravity does not work that way, Molly! It doesn't.”

“Nope, not even a little.”

He opened his mouth to protest more. “Shh,” she said, and relaxed against him [ _snuggle_ , his brain supplied, _(v.) to draw up closely, for comfort or affection _], her thigh pressed against his, her head on his shoulder.__

“You have very strange taste, Molly,” he said into her hair.  

“I do. Now hush. You love it.”

“Yes,” he replied. 

He did.


End file.
